Tax officers need to strike a fine balance, says FM Arun Jaitley to IRS entrants

NEW DELHI: Tax officers need to strike a fine balance, finance minister Arun Jaitley advised new entrants to the Indian Revenue Service ( IRS), a message that’s part of the overall government theme that it wants to avoid an overzealous tax regime.

“Your job in the matter of tax collection has to be guided by firmness and fairness. A taxman’s job is mixed, he has to be firm and he has to be fair. There are no discounts or concessions which he is entitled to give,” Jaitley said on Friday at the inauguration of the professional training of the 66th batch of IRS (Customs & Central Excise) probationers.

Observing that the government may not be an easy place to work in, the minister advised the IRS probationers to make sure their actions would stand up to ethics and morality tests.